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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Like many writers there is always a little bit of hope when opening my mailbox. Especially when I am hoping to hear back from a magazine that they love my story or something. Today I opened the mailbox and found the annoying advertising circular and a letter addressed to my cat. From the vet.OK I love my cat and he lives a very good life and has a few fans. Last year when he was sick he got a get well card.The letter inside was written to my cat. "It is time for your vaccination." "Please remind your owner to call and schedule your appointment." Does the vet realize that my cat doesn't have thumbs which makes opening mail hard. I suppose he could use his teeth but then where would we be.Does the vet know that my cat runs in terror if he thinks there might be a chance we will have to go there. If it had been up to the cat to remind me the letter from the vet would have gone the way of bad report cards. It would probably be lost under the doormat right now.I think this attempt to be cute fails because every time I walk into to vet they try to extract the most money possible from me. When I took my cat there last fall when he was sick I suggested that they do a $65 urine test and they suggested a $250 test that tested everything but the urine. In the end my cat ended up having crystals and getting blocked up and the whole experience cost me $1500 because they wouldn't do a $65 test. When I brought him in for his 6 month check up they suggested I do this $250 test again. I think it is time to find a new vet as soon as this vaccination is finished.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

The other day a walk around the park proved to be a good break from writing. Observing some of the park goers also proved to be inspirational for a story. I came home from the park and wrote a rough draft for a short story.One of my dream jobs in life would have been to come up with names for nail polish colors. I thought this would be the perfect job for me when I was in college and was wearing a lot of the Street Wear and Urban Decay lines. Colors I wore at the time were Blood, Gun Metal, and Envy. I stopped wearing nail polish shortly out of college when I became a server. I worked at a couple places that were pretty strict about the uniform. Both places were a little pricier and nicer than just going to Applebee's or Perkins but they were not quite fine dining. Both places had fairly strict uniform codes including starched shirts and a certain color shoe. Both places had the same view on nail polish. Nails had to be kept neat. If nail polish was chipped that was considered Tacky and was not allowed. Both places would send people home if the uniform was not up to standard.But I've been using nail polish a little more often lately and I find that I am still love the names of nail polish colors. Which is why I have been trying to remember to look for the OPI color Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ. I remembered to buy it yesterday while at Target.I first found out about this color through Facebook quizzes since this is the OPI color that describes a couple friends. When I saw that there was a Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ I had to have it.When my dad started going through the Jimmy Buffett phase of his midlife crisis he traded in his 26 foot sailboat for a 45 foot sailboat. The boat he bought belonged to Mrs. O'Leary's great great grandson. He even left us stationary with his letterhead on the boat. Inside the large O was a picture of a cow kicking over a lantern lest you forget why the O'Leary's are famous.Sadly my dad traded the boat in for a motor home about 6 years ago when he began the Texas Hold 'em phase of his midlife crisis. But I still feel connected enough to Mrs. O'Leary and her cow that I needed to own the nail polish with her name on it.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

The challenge the last couple days has been my inner editor. For some reason my inner editor has become way to loud on certain projects.Fortunately the inner editor has not been so noisy when I have been working on my middle grade novel but when I sit down to work on something shorter my inner editor is like "Too much dialogue." "Not enough conflict." I am always able to send my inner editor away to "inner editor camp" in November for National Novel Writing Month but for some reason my inner editor will not go away lately. Perhaps I need to enroll my inner editor in a day camp for the summer. It could be that I should just focus on the middle grade novel but I like working on shorter things as well. Even though I like my middle grade novel sometimes it is nice to have a little break from that. It is good for me to write and revise smaller pieces because then I can put into practice some of the things I've learned about writing for children.So today I will try to silence the inner editor so I can get some of these stories out of my spiral bound notebook and into my computer notebook.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Happy Dance. Happy Dance.A couple weeks ago I brought my rejected story to my writing group to see what could be done. My writing group loved it and gave me a couple suggestions and one of the ladies in my writing group suggested I send it to a friend of hers who works publishing a Sunday School paper. Since the story was about Christmas she thought they might be interested.So my writing friend emailed her contact and they said they would be interested in reading it if I could get the story to around 300 words. Which I did. And now Happy Dance, Happy Dance because they are going to publish it.This is really great because it is just the encouragement I needed. I know that there are people who get like 200 rejection letters and still they manage to keep going. Since this story was about Christmas it just felt like it needed to get picked up soon or wait until next year. My Mom is super proud and excited. I am super excited. So anyone on my Christmas Card list who normally gets one of the nice Courage Center cards will be getting a copy. So that is my awesome news. Now back to the writing board to work on more stories while I am still riding the wave of confidence that comes from being accepted.